Thursday, August 30, 2012

2012/08/29 East Cape Odyssey

On Sunday 26 August 2012 Lisa and I began our 5 day trip from Hamilton around the East Cape of New Zealand and back - 1200km in total.
We started off by staying at a friend's place in Rotorua , commonly known as 'Rotten-rua'' due to the smell of the thermal activity .

We spent most of the afternoon relaxing at the Waikite valley hot pools in water about 38 degrees C.
Lisa says I must remember to mention that I took a wrong turn while she knew I should have gone the other way - at least we saw some new scenery :)

There is a lot of thermal activity around Rotorua with steam coming out of the ground in the middle of the city as well . The rock formations in the waikite valley were interesting as well .

One thing I still need to get used to about being married , and having spare cameras lying around , is that the wife also likes to take pictures - and not only of the scenery :)

Basically day one was pretty uneventful in comparison to the rest of the trip but Rotorua was our 'launching pad' for the main holiday .

Day Two :

On the second day we headed for Whakatane , a town I have never visited before . It's very nice there with rock formations in the middle of town [ on the video ].

We drove over the hill to continue our journey and ended up refueling in a small town after stopping to take pictures and being greeted by the dog who wandered over to see what we were up to .

We also stopped at an old building for some pictures . Lisa took this one with the D40 and 18-105 lens.

It had a lot of "character" , it was a "home handyman's dream"

Day two was plagued by bad weather and we ended up at the Lottin point motel run by "Bruno and Duckie" . When we got there we were told that there was no hot water yet , the fire still had to be lit - so we waited a while before having a shower .
At first I thought there was no electricity either , until I realized 4 of 7 light bulbs were blown so I had to ask Bruno , busy lighting the fire , for some bulbs so I could fit them.
Lisa doesn't like insects much so when I saw a spider on the washbasin I quickly flushed it down the drain . Then at bedtime I looked over at the wall and saw a slug crawling down towards us and quickly flicked off the lights before Lisa could see it - or I wouldn't get any sleep .
After getting home I told Lisa about them - she says she had already wanted to go and sleep in the van rather but didn't want to hurt my feelings :)

Day three:

We woke to better weather on Tuesday morning .

From here we headed for Te Araroa and the worlds' most easterly lighthouse .
This cemetery looked quite out of place right next to the ocean .

Awatere river .

There we found the world's largest Pohutukawa tree .

a house with its own waterfall

Memories of the past

and when we got to the end of the road we climbed 600 steps to the lighthouse

I tried to 'invade'

We carried on toward Tokomaru bay and met a horse with no ... rider

When we got to Tokomaru bay we were greeted by a rainbow

and some old buildings

From there we headed down to Tolaga bay .

We stayed in a little cabin for $65 .

And played scrabble all night while the spoiled cat turned its back on a piece of sausage roll .

Day 4 :

Down to Gisborne and then back up past Opotiki.

Gisborne is an interesting little town - fondly known as "Gizzy" by locals .

From there we ended up at Ohiwa bay camp ground with a nice view.

Someone had built a "fort" [?] with sticks . I put the gopro hellmet camera mounted on an eggtimer in the middle and did a timelapse